Venice Hotel Guidebooks

Archived article

We occasionally receive
e-mail from readers who want hotel recommendations for Venice. We usually reply by warning
them not to rely on one person's opinions, but to consult several guidebooks. The reasons
for this are simple:

No one but a guidebook author is likely to know more than
a handful of hotels in any given city. (Let's face it: Without a financial motive, why
would anyone want to inspect rooms in dozens of hotels?)

Different travelers have different hotel needs. One might
be looking for a cheap, clean hotel near the railroad station; another might prefer an
expensive hotel near the Piazza San Marco or a resort hotel on the Lido.

For most travelers, a trip to Venice is a
once-in-a-lifetime or a once-in-a-great-while experience. Comparison shopping with the
help of guidebooks is the safest way to avoid being disappointed by the accommodations
where you'll be spending eight or ten hours each day.

Which guidebooks should you consult? All of the major
guides are reliable enough, but you'll get more detailed information from two excellent
guidebooks that focus on accommodations in Venice and Italy. Here they are:

This British guide describes "150 captivating
small hotels, pensioni, bed-and-breakfasts, and self-catering palazzi"
in Venice, the Veneto, Lombardia, and Friuli-Venezia Giulia.

The first part of the book is devoted to general information maps with call-outs
that point to individual hotel locations. Each of the next 85 pages has a photo, several
paragraphs of text, and practical information (such as prices) on a specific hotel or
rental accommodation. The rest of the book is divided into half-page descriptions of
properties that didn't make it into the main section.

The descriptions are refreshingly opinionated and even blunt. For example, the
authors don't hesitate to mention that the Cipriani is "astonishingly
overpriced" or that an inspector found some of the employees "churlish" at
the otherwise charming Pensione Accademia.

Note: Charming
Small Hotel Guides: Italy is available for travelers who venture beyond the
Northeastern region, and the series includes volumes for other European countries. Each is
slightly smaller than a Michelin Green Guide, for easy carrying in a handbag or
coat pocket.

Sandra Gustafson's Cheap Sleeps series is the
standard by which other budget guidebooks should be judged, and that standard is very high
indeed. Ms. Gustafson's descriptions are as colorful as they are honest, as when she
writes:

"The approach, up hideous green-linoleum-colored stairs, is not
inspiring, and neither are the beat-up halls painted landlord green.
Remember though, you don't live in the public areas but in the rooms, and
for a one-star, the rooms are surprising: large and freshly painted with
decent furniture and acceptable bedcoverings....If you can live with thin
towels and metal phone-booth-style showers squeezed into the corners of
the rooms, this is an agreeable Cheap Sleep that is presided over by Irma
Maroder, a sweet woman who does not speak English but understands broken
Italian beautifully."

Not all hotels in the book are low-end. Ms. Gustafson includes listings for two-
and three-star hotels such as the Paganelli, Ala, and Kette. Student accommodations and
campgrounds are also described.

As the title implies, Cheap Sleeps in Italy isn't just about Venice.
The book also has extensive listings for Florence and Rome, for a total of nearly 150
hotels. And while it's a bit heavy for carrying around with you, it's perfect for
selecting hotels in Italy's three most popular tourist cities before you leave home.